Körmöczi Katalin szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum 3 - From the End of the Turkish Wars to the Millennium - The history of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries (Budapest, 2001)
ROOM 12. Revolution and War of Independence in 1848-49 "I Fall on My Knees Before the Greatness of the Nation" (Lajos Kossuth) (Katalin Körmöczi - Tibor Kovács S.)
ROOM 12 Revolution and War of Independence in 1848-49 "I Fall on My Knees Before the Greatness of the Nation" (Lajos Kossuth) The programme of the last feudal diet (Fig. 30), convened at the end of 1847, consisted of the Opposition Declaration and the March 3 manuscript speech of Lajos Kossuth, a delegate from Pest county and the leading politician in the Lower Table. The wave of European revolutions which built up in the spring of 1848 had a big influence on the spirit of the Pozsony (Bratislava) Diet; bourgeois revolutions broke out in Italian cities, in the German states, in France, and in Vienna. Radical youth in Pest followed suit with its bloodless revolution. In the spring of 1848 events in Hungary were shaped by the reciprocal influences of Pozsony (Bratislava), Vienna and Pest. Joining arms with radical youth, the Hungarian liberal noble opposition raised the opposition movements in Hungary to the ranks of the European revolutions. In line with the programme formulated in the second half of the 1840s, the pro-reform aristocracy and the liberal lesser nobility wished to achieve all the preconditions for a bourgeois nation-state, including national self-determination. However, this did not entail a break with the House of Habsburg until spring 1849. This was the political stance expressed in the Opposition Declaration; this was the spirit reflected by "What the Hungarian Nation Demands " (Fig. 31), the twelve points drawn up by the March Youth and printed on March 15, and also by Sándor Petőfi 's "National Song" (Fig. 32). The Twelve Points were drafted in the Pilvax Coffee-house, the "Hall of Revolution" in March 1848; while the National Song, the first item to come off the free press, was printed in the printing-works of Landerer and Heckenast, the "Hall of Liberty". The mementos and depictions are connected with this day, and with the heroes of it. So, too, are the lines from Petőfi 's diary: "Its Excellency the Council of Lieutenancy turned pale,
